Anscombe pressure kick makes history for Wales
Springboks lose in tight contest
They had the momentum, they had the ascendancy, and it just required decent game management for them to wrap it up and turn next week's final test in Cape Town into a dead rubber game.
A pressure conversion from the touchline with just over a minute to go earned Wales a historic 13-12 win over the Springboks to level the Castle Lager Test Series with one game to go in front of a packed Toyota Stadium in Bloemfontein on Saturday.
Wales had played the Boks 11 times in South Africa before this game and lost every one of them.
They have been creeping incrementally closer to notching a first victory, however, and were probably unlucky to lose close games in Nelspruit in 2014 and again in the first test in Pretoria last week.
Perhaps it was the swings and roundabouts theory that applied this time around, for had they lost it, this was not a game that Wales would have been able to look back at as one where they were unlucky.
Wales won simply because they hung in in the face of ferocious South African pressure for most of the game until there was a significant momentum shift in the last quarter of an hour.
The Boks were leading 12-3 when skipper Handre Pollard kicked his fourth penalty in the 58th minute and they looked destined to clinch the series.
They had the momentum, they had the ascendancy, and it just required decent game management for them to wrap it up and turn next week’s final test in Cape Town into a dead rubber game.
Little impact
But their game management was horrible in the last minutes and it was easy to finger what went wrong. Coach Jacques Nienaber’s decision to make 14 changes to the starting team and include four debutants on the bench meant that this was not an occasion when the South Africans had their feared Bomb Squad impact to call on.
Deon Fourie did make a huge impact when he came on, but apart from the Stormers loose-forward and Malcolm Marx, when he came on immediately after halftime, there was no significant impact made by the reserves and it was then that Wales, profiting from a period where they had four penalties in a row in not many more minutes than that, forced he momentum shift that changed the game.
For the first part of the second half, the Boks had been all over Wales and nothing was going right for the visitors. They were throwing skew lineouts and being forced into error by a Bok team that at one stage had six penalties in a row awarded to them.
At that point, the talking point on the press benches was not so much that the Boks might lose, but that they might end the game for the first time since they lost 38-3 to Ireland in Allister Coetzee’s last tour in charge in 2017 having not scored a try. It did turn out, but it was a far more calamitous outcome, for they lost the game and regardless of what happens next week, Wales will feel they’ve had a successful series given the history they made here.
There are sure to be people who will turn on coach Nienaber for changing up his team so much, and it is true that the lack of synch that comes from so many combinations playing together for the first time might have played a role in the long periods when the Boks hammered away at the Welsh but could not cross their line.
Lessons
However, the Bok team that played here gave much better than it got for 65 of the 80 minutes and while no defeat in a home test is ever acceptable to South Africans, it could be argued that Nienaber and the players learned a lot.
The Boks struggled with the aerial game, particularly early on, but for much of the game were a lot better ironically than they were in winning the previous week in Pretoria. When it comes to alternatives to first choice players, the South Africans have several of those, with the midfield of Andre Esterhuizen and Jesse Kriel doing well outside Pollard, who made some mistakes but generally played a good game.
The debutants in the starting team, Evan Roos and Kurt-Lee Arendse, both showed glimpses of why they were selected, and Marcell Coetzee was immense on the flank. Scrumhalf Jaden Hendrikse too showed he can play international rugby. However, the fact they made history for all the wrong reasons will obscure those positives as the Boks now prepare for a deciding test in Cape Town.
The Boks did everything except cross the Welsh line in the first half where they got the better of the territory and possession battle. It felt like they were exerting constant pressure on the Welsh in a crackling atmosphere, with the 46 000 crowd showing their appreciation for being back at live rugby by launching several Mexican Waves from the early minutes, while they thrived on the music that thumped around the stadium during the breaks in play.
The crowd chanted “Bokke, Bokke, Bokke” as they waited for the team to run onto the field and it was only a slight dent to the atmosphere when the Boks were penalised for sealing off after Warrick Gelant had fielded the kick-off and Wales captain Dan Biggar gave his team a 3-0 lead after less than a minute and a half.
The South African start was certainly more energetic and more forceful than the previous week in Pretoria, and after Biggar slotted his kick the Boks swarmed onto attack, making use of a few penalty advantages from referee Angus Gardner before eventually the attack was held up metres from the line and skipper Handre Pollard slotted from in front to level the scores after six minutes.
Wales had played the Boks 11 times in South Africa before this game and lost every one of them.
They have been creeping incrementally closer to notching a first victory, however, and were probably unlucky to lose close games in Nelspruit in 2014 and again in the first test in Pretoria last week.
Perhaps it was the swings and roundabouts theory that applied this time around, for had they lost it, this was not a game that Wales would have been able to look back at as one where they were unlucky.
Wales won simply because they hung in in the face of ferocious South African pressure for most of the game until there was a significant momentum shift in the last quarter of an hour.
The Boks were leading 12-3 when skipper Handre Pollard kicked his fourth penalty in the 58th minute and they looked destined to clinch the series.
They had the momentum, they had the ascendancy, and it just required decent game management for them to wrap it up and turn next week’s final test in Cape Town into a dead rubber game.
Little impact
But their game management was horrible in the last minutes and it was easy to finger what went wrong. Coach Jacques Nienaber’s decision to make 14 changes to the starting team and include four debutants on the bench meant that this was not an occasion when the South Africans had their feared Bomb Squad impact to call on.
Deon Fourie did make a huge impact when he came on, but apart from the Stormers loose-forward and Malcolm Marx, when he came on immediately after halftime, there was no significant impact made by the reserves and it was then that Wales, profiting from a period where they had four penalties in a row in not many more minutes than that, forced he momentum shift that changed the game.
For the first part of the second half, the Boks had been all over Wales and nothing was going right for the visitors. They were throwing skew lineouts and being forced into error by a Bok team that at one stage had six penalties in a row awarded to them.
At that point, the talking point on the press benches was not so much that the Boks might lose, but that they might end the game for the first time since they lost 38-3 to Ireland in Allister Coetzee’s last tour in charge in 2017 having not scored a try. It did turn out, but it was a far more calamitous outcome, for they lost the game and regardless of what happens next week, Wales will feel they’ve had a successful series given the history they made here.
There are sure to be people who will turn on coach Nienaber for changing up his team so much, and it is true that the lack of synch that comes from so many combinations playing together for the first time might have played a role in the long periods when the Boks hammered away at the Welsh but could not cross their line.
Lessons
However, the Bok team that played here gave much better than it got for 65 of the 80 minutes and while no defeat in a home test is ever acceptable to South Africans, it could be argued that Nienaber and the players learned a lot.
The Boks struggled with the aerial game, particularly early on, but for much of the game were a lot better ironically than they were in winning the previous week in Pretoria. When it comes to alternatives to first choice players, the South Africans have several of those, with the midfield of Andre Esterhuizen and Jesse Kriel doing well outside Pollard, who made some mistakes but generally played a good game.
The debutants in the starting team, Evan Roos and Kurt-Lee Arendse, both showed glimpses of why they were selected, and Marcell Coetzee was immense on the flank. Scrumhalf Jaden Hendrikse too showed he can play international rugby. However, the fact they made history for all the wrong reasons will obscure those positives as the Boks now prepare for a deciding test in Cape Town.
The Boks did everything except cross the Welsh line in the first half where they got the better of the territory and possession battle. It felt like they were exerting constant pressure on the Welsh in a crackling atmosphere, with the 46 000 crowd showing their appreciation for being back at live rugby by launching several Mexican Waves from the early minutes, while they thrived on the music that thumped around the stadium during the breaks in play.
The crowd chanted “Bokke, Bokke, Bokke” as they waited for the team to run onto the field and it was only a slight dent to the atmosphere when the Boks were penalised for sealing off after Warrick Gelant had fielded the kick-off and Wales captain Dan Biggar gave his team a 3-0 lead after less than a minute and a half.
The South African start was certainly more energetic and more forceful than the previous week in Pretoria, and after Biggar slotted his kick the Boks swarmed onto attack, making use of a few penalty advantages from referee Angus Gardner before eventually the attack was held up metres from the line and skipper Handre Pollard slotted from in front to level the scores after six minutes.
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